Download Christian Philosophers and The Existence of God

Christian Philosophers and The Existence of God
Athenian Empire
Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great
Roman Empire at its Largest
Historical Context
•The Roman Empire collapses 430AD from invading barbarians
•Europe begins the Dark Ages
•Not the case in the rest of the world.
•Tang Dynasty in China thrives.
•Ancient Greek learning is preserved in Arabic communities and later reintroduced to
Europeans
•Christianity takes on the role of civilization in Europe
Saint Augustine
•Born in Hippo, 354 AD – 430
•Marrying the historical facts of Christianity with the ideas of Plato
•There is a part of us that is timeless and non-material (soul)
•Our bodies are among the fleeting and decaying objects of the sensory world
Saint Augustine
St. Thomas Aquinas
(1225-74 AD)
•Was once the philosopher of choice for Catholic’s
•His main project was to match the views of Aristotle with Christian teaching
•Makes a distinction between Reason and Faith
•Rational thought cannot answer whether or not the world had a beginning or will
end. Those things can only be understood as a that as a matter of faith.
•Rational knowledge is based on sensory experience (Aristotle)
•Mind is born with a clean slate (tabula rasa)
Saint Thomas Aquinas
St. Thomas Aquinas
Essence vs. Existence
•The essence of a thing is what that thing is
•Ex: A unicorn. You can describe a unicorn, but can say they exist?
•To ask if something exists is a separate question from describing what it is.
•This is a very important distinction that will be debated throughout the history of
philosophy.
St. Thomas Aquinas Ideas about God
have an
•God created the world according to his wishes. Which means he had already thought of
the world’s essence, what the world was going to be like, before the world came into
existence. Essence comes before existence.
•But God’s own essence cannot have come before his own existence. God must be pure
existence.
The existence of God
•With Christianity becoming the dominating world view of Europe, one of the important
questions for thinkers of this time was to show that God existed.
•Notice that they are trying to “show” that God exists and not “find out” whether or not
God exists. To say that God does not exist would be considered heresy.
Arguments for the Existence of God
•Teleological Argument – Explains something in terms of its goal
•The universe exhibits design and purpose. Everything seems to act according to plan.
•There must be a designer who thought up this complicated system
•Only God could think of something as complicated as nature in its entirety
•Therefore, God exists.
Cosmological Argument
•Cosmological Argument – Explanation by existence of the universe
•The very fact that the universe is here at all means someone must have created it
•It could not have come out of nothing.
•The problem with this argument is infinite regress. Who created the creator?
Ontological Argument
•Ontological Argument – Explanation by referring to the nature of being
•Imagine a perfect being, with every attribute except existence
•If doesn’t have the attribute of existence, then it is not a perfect being
•Therefore, the most perfect possible being must exist.
Now we are going to try and prove the existence of God
•We are going to break up into groups of four people (max)
•One person will be a note taker. Write down the groups members names and any
important points or questions that your group comes up with.
•20 mins group time. Remaining time will be used as a class discussion reviewing what
each group came up with.